20 • Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina
October 1993
Volunteers
Continued from page 1
In recent years, the responsibility
for recruiting, training and placing
volunteers has passed from the hos
pital auxiliary to the Department of
Volunteer Services, leaving the auxil
iary free to run the hospital gift shop
and hold fundraising events.
The type of person volunteering
for hospitd duty also has changed.
“We’re seeing a greater number
of students and night and weekend
volunteers,” says Jane Bell Russo,
the center’s director of volunteer ser
vices. “We’re also getting people who
want to see and do more in the hospi
tal. There’s a lot more of a career
focus coming into play.”
In response, her department has
tried to find new ways to use volun
teer skills. In addition to the tradi
tional tasks of delivering flowers and
working in the gift shop, volunteers
now run bingo games, assist with
audio-visual presentations and act as
liaisons between patients and physi
cians at the 777-bed medical center.
In her four months as a hospital
volunteer, Janice Marvin has learned
how to give comfort with small ges
tures.
During her weekly stint in the
cardiac catheterization lab, she
offers heart patients magazines,
extra pillows and a sympathetic ear
as they wait for various tests.
Unlike many volunteers who
come to the hospital wanting to work
with children, Marvin requested a
position helping adults.
“My child had gone back to
school, so I had a lot of time on my
hands,” she says. “I wanted a job
with some dignity and I thou^t hos
pital work would have that.”
Among her favorite patients are
the heart transplant recipients who
come to the lab for tests on their new
organs.
“They are the most incredible
people to deal with,” Marvin says.
“It’s like they have a new lease on
life.”
Although it was hard at first to
tell whether she was making a differ
ence, she has found that her pres
ence is often enough to calm an anx
ious patient.
“Sometimes the patients will tell
me things they won’t teU a doctor or
nurse,” Marvin says. “When you’re
dealing with hearts, it’s life and
death. I’ve learned how to listen and
how to read the person to see what
they need.”
Down on the first floor. Jack
Williams is three-quarters of the way
through his volunteer shift in the
one-day surgical waiting room.
Dressed in a neat red jacket and
tie, he cuts a dignified, sli^tly for
mal figure as he ushers patients into
the waiting room and checks on the
status of family members in surgery.
Williams began volunteering at
the medical center more than five
years ago, after he retired from his
job as a sales representative for
National Cash Register.
After four years in the heart unit,
he asked to be transferred to the sur
gical waiting room, becoming one of
the first volunteers to fill a gap creat
ed by the elimination of a full-time
paid staff position there.
As the waiting room begins to fill
up, Williams directs a surgeon in
pale green scrubs to a group of fami
ly members huddled by the entrance.
He watches as their tense faces
relax, hearing good news about their
loved one.
The phone jangles and WiUiams
picks it up after only one ring.
He cheeks his list carefully for the
name of a patient, then gives the cor
rect pronunciation to the doctor on
the other end of the line.
WiUiams’ weekly shift begins at
7:30 a.m. and ends at 1:30 p.m.
“I don’t sit down much,” he says.
“When I leave here. I’m tired.”
But even a bout with heart
surgery earlier this year didn’t keep
him away for long.
“I get a lot of self-gratification out
of this,” WUliams says. “I enjoy being
around people and being of help. I
just try to have a cahn, reassuring
manner.”
Judy Biber knows she has one of
the most popular volunteer jobs in
the hospit^.
One morning a week, she scrubs
her hands and dons a longsleeved
sterUe gown for a two-hour shift cud
dling babies in the Neonatal
Intensive Care Nursery.
“Studies have shown that babies
who don’t get touched, don’t thrive,”
says Biber, who has four chUdren of
her own. “Most of the babies we work
with start as preemies. Once they get
stabUized, they need to be held.”
At first, the beeping monitors
attached to the sealed incubators
and tiny cribs frightened her. But
after she discovered the signals were
rarely life-threatening, she relaxed.
“Doing this is so satisfying,” says
Biber, as she plays a game of patty-
cake with a dimpled, blonde baby
wearing braces on her legs. “But you
have to know in advance that your
task is very small. You can’t change
a baby’s whole life.”
Like many of the volunteers who
work at the medical center, Helen
Barclay has been on both sides of the
admitting desk.
More than two decades ago, she
spent several long months at the
center, recovering from Rocky
Mountain Spotted Fever.
Her job as receptionist in the
main surgical waiting room is a way
to both acknowledge the past and
prepare for the future.
“I owe my life to this hospital and
this is my way of giving something
Hospital volunteer Helen Barclay, left, talks with Susan Cox in the surgical waiting room
at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
Photo by Robert Miller
back,” says Barclay, who has been a
medical center volunteer since 1978.
“Being here is getting me ready to go
back into the work world.”
On this particular morning,
almost every chair in the waiting
room is filled. From her post near
the door, Barclay answers phone
calls and helps keep track of
patients moving through the process
of surgery.
Does it take a special person to
be a hospital volunteer?
“Yes,” says Barclay, as she
checks another name off her list.
“You have to have real empathy for
the patients and not be clipped.
When I leave here, I feel like I’ve
done something for somebody.”
Continuing changes in the health
care industry will only increase the
need for hospital volunteers, says
Bell Russo, the volunteer director.
“It can be shown that they save
money. They are also very important
from the standpoint of involving the
community in health care.”
As the non-technical elements of
a hi^y technical system, volunteers
help patients make their way
through the maze of the modern hos
pital, she says.
“They are the ones who can take
the time that a staff member can’t.
It’s that extra TLC.”
At the end of her shift, after com
pleting visits to her assigned
patients at Children’s Hospital, Lee,
the pediatric unit volunteer, decides
to check up on a young boy from her
church who is recovering from being
run over by a car.
She finds him slumped in his
wheelchair, strug^g with the task
of eating his breSast.
“Kevin, don’t you want to eat this
nice food?” she asks him, positioning
herself in front of the tray.
“No ma’am,” the boy says, wrin
kling his nose in disgust.
“Now Kevin, you want to play
basketball don’t you?” Lee coaxes
him, holding out a forkful of scram
bled eggs. “Well, man! You got to eat
if you want to do that.”
And after a minute, Kevin begins
his breakfast.
Gift
Continued from page 1
two sides communicated only
through their lawyers. Courts filed a
lawsuit demanding that the hospital
return the gift. The hospital fought
back to protect its windfall.
In July, the N.C. Court of Appeals
sided with the hospital. The ruling
boiled down to a simple proposition:
One can’t attach strings to a gift after
it’s given.
But writing in a 3-0 decision.
Judge James Wynn Jr. lamented the
hospital’s treatment of its benefactor.
“Essentially, it appears that the
Hospital and its administration,
though initially appreciative of the
gift, became insensitive to the fact
that the elderly Courts had unselfish-
Nonprofit Management
Workshops
The Legal Vulnerability of Social Workers
to Malpractice Suits: Probiems and Solutions
October 28, 1993 in Charlotte, NO
October 29, 1993 In Raleigh, NO
Organizational Effectiveness and
Managerial Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations
November 18, 1993 in Charlotte, NO
November 19, 1993 in Raleigh, NO
Using Computers as an Aid to
Human Service Management
December 1, 1993 in Chapel Hill, NC
Offered by:
School of Social Work
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
For more information caii Lisa Stauffer at 919-962-1225
ly donated her life’s savings to the
Hospital,” Judge Wynn wrote. “”We
do not wish to encourage such cal
lousness, as it will act only to dis
courage the generosity of private citi
zens necessary to serve the public
good.”
Julia Courts has lived in Winston-
Salem since 1927, but her famiiy is
from the Reidsville area. Throughout
her life. Courts invested her earnings
as a newspaper librarian in the com
mon stock of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco
Co., later RJR Nabisco.
According to court papers. Courts
had planned on leaving the stock to
the hospital in her will.
But events on Wall Street near
the end of 1988 changed her mind.
RJR Nabisco was on the verge of a
leveraged buyout. On Dec. 6, 1988,
Courts removed 7,954 shares of stock
from her safe deposit box, obtained
the hospital’s identification number
and transferred the stock to the hos
pital.
She left a message for the hospi
tal president, James Knight. When
Kni^t returned the call that after
noon, Courts simply told him she was
sending a gift to the hospital.
On Dec. 15, Knight called to thank
Courts for the shares, which were
trading at $89.75 that day, making
the gift worth $712,076.50. Knight
asked the reason for the gift, and
Courts explained she wanted to
honor her family, and in particular
the memory of her grandfather.
The following week. Courts
lunched with Knight and Craig
Cardwell, then chairman of the hospi
tal’s board of trustees. Courts told
them of her family ties to Reidsville,
and apparently suggested using the
money to help poor people pay their
hospital bills. Knight and Cardwell, in
turn, explained some of the hospital’s
projects, apparently to get Courts’
opinion on how best to recognize her
W.
and her family.
Testifying at deposition about the
lunch. Courts said she had not voiced
a preference
for any pro
ject. When
asked if she
had wanted
to leave the
decision up to
the hospital,
she replied,
“That’s ri^t.’
Sometime
after the
lunch. Courts
learned of the
hospital’s
plan to estab
lish a charita
ble founda
tion through
which dona
tions could be
raised for the
hospital - a
plan that pre
dated her stock donation.
Courts warmed to this idea, and
wanted the foundation established in
her family’s name. Believing that
would happen, she occasionally called
the hospiM to check on the progress
of the Courts Foundation, and sent
Kni^t a list of people she wished to
sit on the foundation’s board.
The falling out came on April 5,
1990, when the hospital established
the foundation - the Annie Penn
Memorial Hospital Foundation. The
hospital said it followed the tradition
of naming the charity for the organi
zation it supported.
Hospital administrators informed
Courts of their decision in a March 30
letter. The hospital suggested that a
Courts Family Endowment be estab
lished within the Foundation.
Disappointed by the decision.
Courts cut off all communication with
e do
not wish to
encourage such
callousness, as it
will only act to
discourage the
generosity of
private citizens
necessary to
serve the public
good.
N.C. COURT
OF APPEALS
the hospital and filed a lawsuit claim
ing that her gift was conditioned on
the foundation being named for her
grandfather.
She sued in Superior Court in
Forsyth County and iost, a ruiing
upheid by the Court of Appeals. Her
attorney, Melvin Wri^t of Winston-
Salem, did not return repeated phone
calls.
People have the right to attach
conditions when giving their property
away, Wynn wrote, and the gift tails
if the conditions aren’t met. But an
unconditional gift, once given, is
irrevocable.
And the record shows that
Courts’ gift was unconditional.
Before signing over the stock cer
tificates, Courts did not consult her
attorney, friends or anyone at the
hospital. She did not condition the
gift on the creation of a Courts family
foundation; indeed, plans for the
foundation were incomplete and in
doubt in December 1988. And when
filling out IRS Form 8283 for non
cash charitable contributions, which
has a section that had to be complet
ed if any conditions were to be placed
on the gift. Courts did not indicate
that she had placed any conditions
on the gift.
Courts hit upon the idea of nam
ing the foundation for her grandfa
ther after making the gift, when she
learned of the hospital’s plans.
But no one at the hospital correct
ed her misconception or explained in
detail to her the nature of the founda
tion and how a name would be select
ed.
And even Knight, the hosptial
president, did not respond when
Courts referred to the “Courts
Foundation’ in his presence, Wynn
wrote.
“Neither he nor anybody eise at
the hospital corrected her miscon
ception.”